"This is a brief life. But in its brevity it offers us Some splendid moments Some meaningful adventures" Rudyard Kipling

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Glorious Gloucestershire

I have written about the Gloucestershire poet, FW Harvey before but today I was reminded of him strongly when I visited Hartpury, which is the village where he was born on 26th March 1888. Harvey was a contemporary of the great War Poets, Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Ivor Gurney and Rupert Brooke; indeed he became a close friend of Ivor Gurney and his fellow composer Herbert Howells while he was at King’s School in Gloucester before the First World War.

As I have written in a previous post, Will Harvey fought in the trenches of Flanders in that horrific war and was a prisoner for some time. As I wandered through the churchyard of St Mary the Virgin in Hartpury on this idyllic afternoon in beautiful Spring sunshine, I couldn’t help but think of him. How dreadful it must have been for Will and all the other young men to leave their homes and be transported to a living hell in the trenches. No wonder Will Harvey wrote so fondly of Gloucestershire and the beautiful English countryside, as in this moving poem.

After Long Wandering:I will go back to Gloucestershire,To the spot where I was bornTo talk at eve with men and womenAnd song on the roads at morn.And I’ll sing as I tramp by dusty hedgesOr drink my ale in the shadeHow Gloucestershire is the finest homeThat the Lord God ever made.

I’ll drink my perry and sing my songOf home and home again,Pierced with the old miraculous pleasureKeen as sharpest pain;And if I rise to sing on the morrowOr if I die in my bed,‘Tis all the same: I’ll be home again,And happy alive or dead.

Newent Church

other side of farming in Upleadon

I went to Hartpury to see the Bee Wall or shelter that was moved some years ago from Hartpury College to the graveyard at the village church. It was in a dreadful state the last time I saw it, but now it has been beautifully restored to its original state. It is a truly unique structure built by a bee-keeping stonemason named Paul Tuffley in the mid19th century, using locally quarried Cotswold stone. The bee shelter was meant to house wicker hives or skeps in which the bees would lay down their honey. It is incredibly decorative with carvings on both sides. 7.3 metres long, 2.5 metres tall and 75centimetres deep, it has 28 sections or ‘boles’ for the hives or ‘skeps’ to go in.

Today there were just 2 skeps in the boles but there were plenty of bees buzzing around the beautiful churchyard. According to the Domesday Book, Gloucester paid 12 sesters, or 24lbs, of honey every year to King Edward. And in 1260 it is recorded that tenants from Hartpury Manor held land in return for payments in honey. So bee-keeping has been a feature of Gloucestershire life for a very long time, and still is.

I hope you enjoy my photos of the Bee Shelter which I took today and find it as fascinating as I do.

I’m so glad you enjoyed it. Thanks so much for the comment. I find it tragic that so many obviously gifted young men had their lives cut short by the war in one way or another. And even more appalling that it is still happening around the world in the 21st century!

Indeed! There was a moral heroism about so many of the first war writers defying the chaos and death to create pained beauty. I hope you will take a tour of the Jukebox when you have the time. Regards thom